Safety equipment

Description

The Driver Innovation Safety Challenge (DISC) aims to support the development and delivery of a solution to identify and alert when a driver or operator is at risk of losing focus or consciousness when in charge of a vehicle or machinery. If a risk is detected, the solution is expected to alert the control room through a Green/Amber/Red alert system.The DISC project is an Innovation Partnership procurement offering up to GBP 20 000 of funding per partner, to up to five partners for R&D and testing over a project life of up to 18 months which, if successful, may award a framework agreement for up to a 3-year period to a single partner. A. Challenge objectives To increase safety measures implemented across public sector vehicles (bus, bin lorries, tram, etc.), the City of Edinburgh Council (CEC) and Edinburgh Trams (ET) aim to implement measures to reduce and mitigate the likelihood of fatigue and health related incidents such as the Bin Lorry accident and Sandilands Junction tram crash. The solution should be suitable for multiple forms of public transport. Emergency braking systems are installed in all UK trams. If a driver loses consciousness, the tram will automatically stop. Through DISC, the authorities intend to be not only reactive, but pre-emptive: DISC aims to support the development of a solution able to capture early-signs of loss of focus, consciousness/alertness/paralysis or similar, to mitigate incidents before they occur. Bidders to DISC are expected to develop a consolidated solution, which can monitor and analyse driver biometrics so that the early signs of loss of consciousness, in an operator in charge of a vehicle or machinery can be picked up immediately and interventions made by the control centre. For fatigue, we include both: (i) micro sleep detection, (ii) focus level evaluation, and (iii) prediction of (i) and (ii) based on previously captured data; with the solution able to provide a real-time alert to both operator and control room. For common health conditions that may lead to unconsciousness, the project is not prescriptive regarding the range of acute or chronic disturbance/incidence monitored which may lead to a reduction in the ability of an operator to manage a vehicle or machine safely. The solution must be able to provide a real-time alert to both driver and control room. The DISC solution is not required to be a medical grade device and is not expected to lead to a diagnosis, but instead alert the control room if the driver has a reduced capability to operate the vehicle safely. Bidders are expected to develop a green/amber/red alert scoring methodology reflecting the risk. If a sufficiently ‘high risk’ profile or incident is detected, it is anticipated that an appropriate message/alarm will be displayed both to the driver and to the control room, making the control team aware in real time of risks to passengers (citizens) from changes in the drivers’ ability to operate the vehicle safely and allowing for a timely intervention to be taken. The authorities’ service management must be able to extract in a report the fatigue and health data collected by the device, underlying the alert system, to share as appropriate with medical staff. B. R&D Funding A preliminary market analysis in 2018 indicated that no solution is available in the market integrating both health and fatigue data-analytics facets into a consolidated system. ET and the CEC acknowledge that bidders will need to carry out R&D to meet this core requirement. To support the bidders, companies selected to be part of the innovation partnership may receive up to a maximum of GBP 20 000 per bidder in CAN DO Innovation Challenge Funding. C. Single supplier framework agreement The successful innovation partner will be awarded a single supplier framework agreement for a duration of 3 years. The estimated framework value is estimated at up to GBP 3-GBP 3.5 million.